Jul 30, 2010

Where's the Palestinian Hadassah?

Clearly, the Palestinian Authority can’t fund its hospitals as Israel does ... : It’s a young, struggling state-in-the-making, while Israel is a 62-year-old, comparatively wealthy state. But Israel had relatively good hospitals even when it, too, was a young, struggling state-to-be, thanks to the generosity of overseas Jews, who built, equipped, and staffed them. Hadassah Hospital, for instance, was founded by the American Hadassah organization, which built six hospitals in Israel before the state’s establishment. Even today, donations from overseas Jews contribute greatly to Israel’s cutting-edge medicine.

Like the Jews, Palestinians have a large Diaspora. Also like the Jews, parts of that Diaspora are well-educated and well-off, with estimated assets of $40-80 billion.

But there the similarity ends — because overseas Palestinians evidently have no interest in doing for the PA what overseas Jews did for pre-state Israel. If they did, their hospitals wouldn’t look as Essa described.